We already have many of the climate solutions we need. But scaling them is hard. The Green Blueprint is a show about the people who are architecting the clean e...
In 2022, Via Separations was getting ready to build its commercial-scale filtration system, a technology that could help cut emissions and costs for a wide range of industries like paper, chemicals, and food processing.
And when the company faced two paths — scale up 10x or 100x — CEO and co-founder Shreya Dave decided to scale faster by building a commercial project at a paper mill in Alberta, Canada. It was a choice that put Via in a race against cash burn and the onset of the cold Canadian winter.
The stakes for the company were high. The goal was to replace energy-intensive industrial evaporation at the paper mill with a first-of-a-kind membrane, akin to a pasta strainer, made of graphene dioxide.
Shreya and her team had worked for years in an MIT lab to develop the membrane, hoping to extract materials with far less energy. Initial tests had shown promise. Scaling up 100x would prove their technology was viable for broader commercial applications.
That is, if they could overcome the challenges.
In this episode, Lara Pierpoint talks to Shreya Dave, co-founder and CEO of Via Separations, about the risk of going big. They cover things like the challenges of finding a first customer and grappling with how fast to scale. Plus, Shreya explains what she would have done differently.
The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter.
On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code LMPODS10. Register today here!
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29:41
Why concentrated solar couldn’t compete
In 2009, John Woolard’s team flipped the switch on a first-of-a-kind concentrated solar power project. The pilot paved the way for BrightSource Energy, where John was CEO, to build its first commercial CSP plant, a 440-megawatt project in the Mojave Desert called Ivanpah.
John and his team believed they were far ahead of the competition, including photovoltaics. And they were on the verge of building several large, concentrated solar plants.
That was the plan. But in the middle of building the first commercial plant, the BrightSource team faced a series of unexpected challenges that forced them to ask: “if we stay the course, will we survive?”
In the first episode of The Green Blueprint, host Lara Pierpoint talks to John Woolard, former CEO of BrightSource Energy and current CEO at Meridian Clean Energy, on lessons from the concentrated solar boom and bust.
They dig into how John salvaged a financial deal that collapsed in the middle of a global financial crisis, the unexpected challenges of permitting and environmental regulations, the competitive threat of solar PV, and knowing when to pivot.
The Green Blueprint is a co-production of Latitude Media and Trellis Climate. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you get podcasts. For more reporting on the companies featured in this podcast, subscribe to Latitude Media’s newsletter.
On December 3 in Washington, DC, Latitude Media is bringing together a range of experts for Transition-AI 2024, a one-day, in-person event addressing both sides of the AI-energy nexus: the challenges AI poses to the grid, and the opportunities. Our podcast listeners get a 10% discount on this year’s conference using the code LMPODS10. Register today here!
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33:38
Introducing: The Green Blueprint
We’ve already invented many of the solutions needed to decarbonize the global economy. But a big chunk of emission reductions will come from technologies that are not yet commercial.
We don’t have decades to get these commercialized – we have years.
So what can we learn from the people who are bringing new technologies from the lab to the market, constructing first-of-a-kind projects, building companies, challenging and transforming incumbents, and finding the right kind of investment to support their scaling?
The Green Blueprint is a new show from Latitude Media and Trellis Climate about the architects of the clean energy economy.
Hosted by Lara Pierpoint, managing director at Trellis, the show profiles the people who are doing the hero’s work of scaling clean technologies: founders, investors, engineers, policymakers, and organizational leaders who are solving a complex set of challenges in the quest to scale quickly.
Every other week, we’ll hear stories about the complexity of building gigafactories, the mind-boggling logistics of mega-clean energy projects, and the risky choices on how fast to scale – plus boardroom disagreements, financial hardships, and moments of failure and redemption.
The Green Blueprint is dropping this fall. You can find it on Latitude Media, or anywhere you get your podcasts.
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2:44
An update on what's ahead for this show, and more
Since we stopped The Carbon Copy, some listeners had questions about what’s next.
Here's a preview of our new podcast, the Transition-AI event in December, and a new newsletter called the AI-Energy Nexus.
Stay tuned to the feed for our new show, dropping later this fall!
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3:04
Frontier Forum: How rates will make or break the energy transition
Dynamic pricing is everywhere – and impacts all of us.
Whether it's the time of day, your location, or the amount of demand, so many of our decisions are driven by real-time pricing changes.
But it's still a relatively new concept in electricity.
This week, we're featuring a conversation with Scott Engstrom of GridX and Economist Ahmad Faruqui on the imperative for good rate design – and the consequences of getting it wrong.
How do we create dynamic rates that are fair, transparent, and effective at valuing distributed resources?
And how do we use technology to design and implement those rates – and perhaps eventually automate them on a real-time basis, as many hope?
This episode was recorded live as part of our Frontier Forum series. Watch the full video here.
We already have many of the climate solutions we need. But scaling them is hard. The Green Blueprint is a show about the people who are architecting the clean economy. Every other week, host Lara Pierpoint profiles the founders, investors, and organizational leaders who are solving complex challenges in the quest to build climate technologies fast.
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